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Re: [RC] Coon Footed - heidiHeidi, is this the same as being "broken down" in the pasterns? I have seen two horses, one old and one that was 9....that were so loose and weak in the pasterns that they hit the back of the fetlock joint when they trotted....or is THAT, a result of being coon footed to start with?. I've seen folks call those horses with the broken-down fetlocks "coon footed"--but the real classical "coon footed" horses have low heels as well. The breakdown in the fetlocks usually is secondary to not enough angulation in the joints above--particulary in the hindquarters, where there is a lack of angulation through the stifle and the hock. (Classic "post legged" horses.) I have had two horses that had "springy" pasterns. The one 5 year old has definatly strengthened and tightened up.......the other just finished Tevis. When I sold her, the vet commented that she had excellent pasterns for absorbing shock.......then again, I have had a very short/straightned pasterned mare that was very smooth to ride; one that was jolty, and another that could gait smoothly but not go down steep hills well. One really has to look at the whole package... :-) There is kind of an "ideal" midrange with pasterns--not too short, not too long, not too steep, not too lax. But like everything else, it has to be evaluated with respect to the entire limb and indeed the entire horse. Boy, I'm getting to the point I hate to make conformation judgements at all....have been disproved wrong so many times. A friend had a pony that was so crooked in the back end she rope-walked.....however, she stayed sound for many miles and years, never tripped and even best conditioned on a 50!!! We westerners have a bad habit of starting with the legs. We should learn a thing or two from our Bedouin brethren, who think we are nuts with our obsession about legs. I certainly can't get entirely past my early "Army manual" sort of upbringing (and it has merit, don't get me wrong!) but endurance horses have taught me to evaluate bodies and proportion FIRST and only look at legs after I've done that. I've seen more "bad legs" go miles and miles down the trail than I can shake a stick at--but I've yet to see a bad body last very long. In fact, it was the repeated destruction of GOOD legs that got me to look further at the biomechanics of the body in the first place--as a ride vet, I couldn't understand why certain sorts of horses were consistently trashing very lovely sets of legs. I almost had myself convinced that some families had innately weaker soft tissue structures or something, since the horses who trashed good legs tended to be related. I've since come to realize that it is part of the same phenomenon I've observed of the increase in back problems in the last 30 years in endurance horses, despite our ever-increasing "great saddle hunts" and awareness of the benefits of chiropractic care. The poorly balanced bodies (generally with long backs and weaker loin) can't round and carry weight well--that can manifest as back problems or saddle fit problems, but it can also manifest as lameness, as the inability to absorb shock through the entire body means that the legs have to take it all. It was a quantum leap for me, at least, to finally grasp this--I was raised in the "old school" where one really didn't bother to evaluate much above the elbows and the stifles, or if one did, one didn't relate it to riding soundness. Now I START with bodies, and work my way down! In another thread, someone commented about how off-the-rack saddles don't fit many horses. This again is a somewhat "modern" phenomenon--backs used to be much more similar, with the main variations being with regard to width and roundness. With the alterations in virtually every riding breed for the halter ring, backs now come in all sorts of shapes and caricatures. Utterly mind-boggling. I suspect that the most uniform breeds with respect to backs are likely still racing breeds--TBs and Standardbreds come to mind. Since getting the last nth degree of speed demands a more balanced body, their bodies have not changed to fit people's whims as have the backs of most of the other riding breeds. Heidi =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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